32 quotes
The foundation of democracy is the sense of spiritual independence which nerves the individual to stand alone against the powers of this world.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)
Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows.
It is probable that democracy owes more to Nonconformity than to any other single movement.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)
A right should not be absolute for the same reason that a power should not be absolute.
The Acquisitive Society (1920)
The certainties of one age are the problems of the next.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)
One of the uses of industry is to provide the wealth which may make possible better education.
Mankind may wring her secrets from nature, and use their knowledge to destroy themselves.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)
An erring colleague is not an Amalkite to be smitten hip and thigh.
The merits of nationalization do not stand or fall with the efficiency or inefficiency of existing state departments as administrators of industry.
As long as men are men, a poor society cannot be too poor to find a right order of life, nor a rich society too rich to have need to seek it.
The Acquisitive Society (1921)
Too often, contemning the external order as unspiritual, [the Puritan] has made it, and ultimately himself, less spiritual by reason of his contempt.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)
Virtues are often conquered by vices, but their rout is most complete when it is inflicted by other virtues, more militant, more efficient, or more congenial.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)
If by "Property" is meant the personal possessions which the word suggests to nine-tenths of the population, the object of socialists is not to undermine property but to protect and increase it.
The Acquisitive Society (1920)
The faith... that riches are not a means but an end, implies that all economic activity is equally estimable, whether it is subordinated to a social purpose or not.
The Acquisitive Society (1920)
England has not yet imitated the example set by America and by most of the British Dominions in making public secondary education free.
Secondary Education For All (1922)
Transference from the primary school to higher education should depend solely upon whether it is likely to be for the benefit of the children concerned.
Secondary Education For All (1922)
In every human soul there is a socialist and an individualist, an authoritarian and a fanatic for liberty, as in each there is a Catholic and a Protestant. The same is true of the mass movements in which men marshal themselves for common action.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)
A society which reverences the attainment of riches as the supreme felicity will naturally be disposed to regard the poor as damned in the next world, if only to justify itself for making their life a hell in this.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)
Precisely in proportion as it is important to preserve the property which a man has in the results of his own efforts, is it important to abolish that which he has in the results of the efforts of someone else.
The Acquisitive Society (1920)
There is no more fatal obstacle to efficiency than the revelation that idleness has the same privileges as industry, and that for every additional blow with the pick or hammer an additional profit will be distributed among shareholders who wield neither.